Trade doesn't add up

The Browns' move with Charlie Frye this week really gets a person to thinking.

Especially since the Browns are trying to win.

There is something to the concept of cutting your losses and moving on, realizing that Frye was not the long-term solution and his play so abysmal in the season opener that the move had to be made.

Ask General Manager Phil Savage privately, and surely this is what he'd say.

There is validity to that way of thinking, of course.

But some things about the move just don't add up, and the main question that can't be answered is why this move was not made three weeks ago, three months ago or soon after the draft.

To hear the scuttlebutt, the Browns were aware that new coordinator Rob Chudzinski was not terribly sold on Frye coming out of spring practices.

Yet the Browns stuck with Frye and Derek Anderson and steadfastly refused to consider allowing Brady Quinn to play early.

Then consider that the Browns spent an entire offseason whispering that they wanted Anderson to start, and it's evident Frye was in a near-impossible situation to succeed.

Now they're left saying that a sixth-round pick for Frye is ''value'' and that this trade was in the works for some time and was not a panic move.

Hmmm.

On the one hand, the team says that a second-day draft pick is a crapshoot and 50-50 proposition, at best. Then when a trade is completed, that second-day pick is ''value.''

The team says that the first game was just one of 16. Then after one bad game they trade the quarterback whom they had named the starter.

The team says there's a plan in place to win. Then they say the most important thing this season is to develop the rookie quarterback.

The Browns discuss privately after Frye's first preseason that he is the team's future. Then the same people trade him after he gets 22 minutes to prove himself in his third season.